The 100 Piece Project
As I’ve said before, there’s a lot of people who want to get better at art and the “100 Day Project” has been very helpful for them. If I were still at my full time job, finding 15 minutes each day to create one small piece would be a great way to make myself accountable to growing my creativity. But, I’m now on my own schedule and when I set aside creative time, I try to set aside as much of it as possible. Which is why I decided that instead of making 1 piece every day for 100 days, I’m going to make 100 small pieces on the same topic, but not necessarily in 100 days. It might take longer - or it might not. I started 13 days ago and I have 18 pieces so far. I make them in batches and I am working on them two at a time. Here’s what I set as my parameters.
I pick two of my painted square papers - different colors.
I pick 5 pieces of paper from my collage stash.
I make a collage with those 5 pieces on each of the two different colors.
Once I get home from my travels, I can add one or two of the following: A scribble, a line, a splatter or a pattern.
That’s it. What have I noticed so far? The color of the background changes everything. The size of the collage piece in relation to the other collage elements and background make it either stand out or blend in to the piece as a whole. Here are a few examples with my observations.
The warm colors (yellow and hot pink) really stand out but the muted colors blend in.
Same collage papers on a different background and the warm yellow doesn’t pop as much - although the hot pink still does. The black and grey has more impact than on the blue background.
This one is really about the magenta line, which is related to the magenta shapes from the magazine paper on the right.
Here the black and white incomplete letters and the muted green are more predominant.
You get the idea. I’m not suggesting you try this particular exercise. But, if there is something you want to get better at with your art making, create a small challenge for yourself. Make it manageable and with distinct parameters. The limitations actually cause you to get more deliberate with your choices. Here’s a couple that I have lined up so you can see how I start. On the right are the two painted background and on the left are the five collage papers.
You can see that I have some painted papers left over from past projects, magazine pages and sometimes I use the inside of security envelopes or old book pages.
The turquoise is an old birthday card envelope, there’s some magazine clippings, one painted paper and a book page. I am not using anything I think of as precious - it’s just for playing around and learning how elements can relate to each other.
So that’s how far I’ve gone on the project and for those of you who love math - I expect that half of my pieces will be below average. (The very definition of below average.) The point is that I’ll learn a lot by making 100 pieces and I won’t spend a lot of money or waste a lot of materials - which is often a concern. It’s a lot of knowledge bang for a few bucks.
Thanks for checking out the blog and if you have any suggestions for a 100 piece project, please feel free to send it my way. I’m having fun with this one but, there’s a lot to learn on the creative journey.
Have a creative week and I’ll be seeing you soon!
Claude
Here’s the counterpart to the one at the top of the blog. Very different - with only one change - the background paper.
